DUST

Writer: Keeley Thompson

Images: Charlie Hardy & Joe Maranta

Trying to slap a label on dust is like trying to high-five a ghost—pointless, and you just end up feeling a bit silly. We live in a world where we can Google why our stomach hurts, when Pompeii blew its lid, or who the hell De Niro played in Goodfellas. But try asking the internet who you are, or what’s on the other side of a black hole, and suddenly the answers dry up. That’s where dust lives—somewhere in that weird, beautiful, and slippery un-Googleable space.

Their music shapeshifts between post-punk (sorry), jazz, electronic, and a kind of spoken-word Australiana that occasionally flirts with rap—but calling it any one of those feels like lying. There’s tension and release, clarity and confusion, and lyrics that feel both deeply personal and entirely alien.

You won’t always “get it,” but maybe that’s the point. Maybe, misunderstanding is the most honest way to understand it. dust aren’t here to be pinned down, they’re just here to make music—and it’s really fucking good.

KEELEY: How was your drive here?

LIAM: Really good! It was really quick compared to other times. We left at like 6am and got here at around 3pm? 

JUSTIN: Yeah, It’s a drive we’ve done many times and it’s sort of become something we look forward to. We all get along really well, so it’s cool to be able to spend that kind of time together where we’re all just hanging out. We had a fun trip. 

KEELEY: Who was on aux today? 

JUSTIN: It was Gabe today! We normally take turns, particularly when we’re on the road a lot. It just depends who is driving. 

KEELEY: You’re playing with Floodlights again tonight. How was the last show and how are you feeling about tonight? 

JUSTIN: Really good. We’re only doing two shows, but the Sydney show was great. They’re a really talented and impactful band, and it’s been nice getting to know them more too. 

LIAM: They’re all really lovely people, and we’ve been getting along with them all really well. It’s been easy, which is nice. 

JUSTIN: That’s it. For us, we always feel a little bit nervous chatting with headline bands, but the Floodlights crew have been so lovely and welcoming.

We’re super keen for the show tonight too. Really keen to play with Blue Diner as well, I really like their music.

KEELEY: Was BIGSOUND the last time you came to Brisbane? 

LIAM: It would’ve been, yeah! That was so much fun. 

KEELEY: dust was the talk of the town at BIGSOUND! You guys did a lot of cool stuff last year, from SXSW, NME Top 100, touring with Interpol and, obviously more locally, BIGSOUND. What were your highlights for 2024? 

LIAM: Oh that’s a good question. For me, obviously the Interpol tour was a big highlight. Getting to go overseas and play some big shows in big spaces was such an amazing experience. 

That BIGSOUND show we played at Soapbox was really sick. Bean Mag and Sexmask played after, and they’re two bands we really love so that was also a highlight for me. 

JUSTIN: SXSW in the US was really cool. Getting to go over there and be a part of that was definitely one of my highlights. 

We also recorded an album. That’s very exciting and big for us. 

LIAM: It’s funny, because I’d held this view that we didn’t really do much last year. Particularly because in comparison to 2023, we did a lot less touring, and spent more time recording and practicing. Looking back now, we definitely did do a lot last year. 

Recording the album really is such an exciting thing for us. We’re all really happy with it and we can’t wait to release it. The whole process and experience of writing was really rewarding. It was quite challenging at times, which was cool to work through. We did a lot of writing trips together too, which were always a bunch of fun. 

KEELEY: Tell me more about the album! Do you think there’s been a change of sound or approach with its creation, and if so, what do you think was the catalyst for that? 

LIAM: There’s definitely a change of sound on the new album, and I think that largely comes down to our influences and things we’ve been consuming and inspired by throughout its creation. 

We’d been sitting on the songs for quite a while, and I think obviously the vision that we’d maybe initially planned had changed as we did. Those writing trips were really foundational for fleshing out the ideas better, and for figuring out what we wanted each song to say and sound like. 

JUSTIN: Yeah we wrote our EP ‘et cetera, etc’ a long time ago, pretty much as we’d just formed as a band. Since then, we’ve obviously grown and changed as people and as a group, with more experience playing, and more life experience in general. 

Writing this album, there were a lot of feelings and changes that have probably shifted a bit since our EP. This album is a lot softer in comparison to the EP - not a lot - but there’s definitely more soft songs on the album. 

KEELEY: Do you think there is a reason for that? 

JUSTIN: I guess we wanted to try something new with song writing, but it also kind of happened accidentally. When we’re all writing songs together, they can end up being quite loud just organically, but when it’s just one of us writing a song, they definitely end up being a bit slower or less chaotic. 

KEELEY: So were the songs from the new album largely written by one person? 

LIAM: I think it comes down to whoever starts writing the song - usually the bones or the initial idea will come from Justin or Gabe and they'll write the lyrics for it. For the album, some lyrics were written in private and some were written together while we were in the studio recording. But it was a very collaborative process whilst we were writing the songs, we're becoming a bit more vulnerable with sharing lyrics and editing them together while we're writing.

KEELEY: Your songs often have a lot to say, and a lot going on instrumentally, but they never feel overcrowded. How do you balance all the elements in your music?

LIAM: There’s definitely a lot of trial and error that’s for sure. I think a lot of the balance comes down to the writing trips we do. We’d spent a lot of time down at No Wave Studio in Mullumbimby and that’s where we recorded a lot of the demos. 

Prior to that though, we just spent a lot of time in the studio, trying new things and chopping and changing parts of the songs. We’d often go home from those sessions and while learning our parts, we’d change a little bit here and there too. It’s organic in a way, but it’s also quite a concerted effort.

JUSTIN: Yeah a lot of ideas made it. A looooot didn’t. 

To a degree, we’ll have conversations about it, but it’s often not as intentional or direct as that. Most of the time, it just happens naturally. We do think about it, but we also don’t? It’s hard to explain. 

It’s also a funny question to try to answer, because sometimes I feel like we haven’t “reeled it in” and that our music is a bit much all the time. 

KEELEY: On your EP, I noticed that Gabe sings ‘Joy (Guilt)’, what’s the reason for that?

GABE: Joy (Guilt) came about from a bunch of notes that I'd put together, some observational lines and some feelings. The chorus came when we were all playing together. I think generally speaking it's just dependent on the song. We're inspired by a few bands that do the dual vocalist thing so we wanted to incorporate that from the start.

KEELEY: What are your three desert island albums? 

LIAM: I’m going to answer with what I’m liking at the moment, because “all time” is too hard to answer. 

JUSTIN: Agreed. 

LIAM: I’ll say Penance by Sidney Phillips, Lucre by Dean Blunt and Elias Bender Rønnenfelt and I’ve been smashing Lily of the Valley by 22º Halo so I’ll say that too. 

JUSTIN: I’ll say any My Bloody Valentine album or single, Richard D James Album by Aphex Twin and maybe like Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy. 

KEELEY: How do you feel about being labelled as ‘post-punk’ and do you agree with it?

LIAM: There’s certain extents to it, and I can see where it comes from, but we don’t really love the labelling.

JUSTIN: Personally, no. But not in a “fuck I hate that” way, because we love post-punk. I think I don’t like the label because I just feel like we don’t do it justice. There’s so many amazing other good post-punk bands that are more era-inspired in that way, and we’re just not like that. 

We were guilty of using the term when we first started, but I think it’s turned into a bit of a catchall. 

KEELEY: I read you’re a fan of Tiny Desk and KEXP. What are some of your favourite shows from them? 

LIAM: I grew up watching all the King Gizzard ones, so they’re pretty nostalgic for me. 

JUSTIN: I watched a really good one with a band called Caroline. 

LIAM: The Kevin Hart Tiny Desk is pretty good. 

JUSTIN: Kevin Hart? 

LIAM: Yeah he pretended to be a rapper or something. Also, I don’t know if The Muppets have done a Tiny Desk, but if they did, that would be my favourite. 

Actually, more seriously another one I recently saw that I liked was the MJ Lenderman once. 

JUSTIN: Also the shame video was great. 

KEELEY: Who are you inspired by?

(Note: ‘Heads will Roll’ by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs starts playing in the background of the interview at this point). 

JUSTIN: My mum and dad, probably. I think also The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I recently watched a video of Karen O and she’s incredible. It’s also kind of poetic that they’re playing right now

LIAM: I think it really depends who we’re all listening to at the time. For me, 22º Halo is definitely a big inspiration at the moment. 

KEELEY: To finish, what is the best biscuit in the Arnotts assorted creams packet? 

LIAM: Oh 100% Monte Carlo.

JUSTIN: I’m gonna go simple and say the Shortbread Cream. 

KEELEY: Good answers, although I think you’re all sleeping on the Kingston. I once had someone answer the Orange Cream. 

LIAM: Oh that’s rogue. Kingstons are great, but I’m still going to say Monte Carlo. 

FIND DUST HERE:

WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY